Highbrow Magazine - best books https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/best-books-7 en A Look at the Best Books of 2023 and Other Favorites https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24273-look-best-books-and-other-favorites <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 12/26/2023 - 15:50</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1books_depositphotos_0.jpg?itok=fb60vun1"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1books_depositphotos_0.jpg?itok=fb60vun1" width="480" height="321" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Here are my personal best books of 2023, as well as other novels from years past that provided the best kind of immersive reading experience. </em></span></span></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>The Sun Walks Down </em>by Fiona MacFarlane</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In 1883, a child goes missing in the barren landscape of southern Australia. This sets in motion a series of actions and consequences in and around the small community of Fairly. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Fiona MacFarlane’s debut novel, <em>The Sun Walks Down, </em>takes place over the course of a week. With each passing day, the search for Denny Wallace grows more agonizing, for the citizens of Fairly and for the reader. The story moves without a bump among a teeming cast of characters, landing squarely on their passions and their sense of impending doom. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There are many places where the author could have lost the thread among the various townspeople, or failed to describe the Australian bush in fresh, interesting ways, or sacrificed narrative momentum over the space of 350 pages. MacFarlane <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/23423-sun-walks-down-poignant-story-set-against-landscape-australian-backcountry" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">nimbly sidesteps these obstacles</a>. <em>The Sun Walks Down </em>is a rich, suspenseful novel that should solidify her status as a writer to be followed for years to come. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1bestbooks23.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>There Will Be Fire: <strong>Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History </strong></em>by Rory Carroll</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">On October 12, 1984, 100 pounds of gelignite exploded in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying for the annual Conservative Party Conference. Five people perished in the ensuing devastation, and many more were wounded. The target of the bombing, known both lovingly and in the most hateful terms as the “Iron Lady,” barely escaped assassination.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Journalist Rory Carroll explores this watershed moment during the time of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. His book grows out of impressive archival research, as well as more than a hundred interviews with police detectives, ex-IRA members, politicians, bomb disposal experts, and many others. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The tone throughout the book is measured and evenhanded. When the plot to kill the Prime Minister coalesces around an IRA operative’s reconnaissance of the Grand Hotel, <em>There Will Be Fire </em>attains <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24077-how-ira-nearly-murdered-iron-lady-there-will-be-fire" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">“can’t-put-it-down” status</a>. The author wisely avoids taking sides in the bitter conflict, and his narrative achieves greater credibility as a result. This is reportage of a high order.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2bestbooks23.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>After the Funeral and Other Stories </em>by Tessa Hadley</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In her latest collection, <em>After the Funeral and Other Stories<em>,</em> </em>Tessa Hadley excels at describing small details—the way light falls in a room, the dysfunctional texture of family life. This attention to detail blends wonderfully with the characters she creates—smart women, sometimes attractive, sometimes indifferent to their own beauty—and their hectic inner lives. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The men in Hadley’s stories come across as blustery and self-absorbed. Time and again, they demonstrate scant interest in the dramas swirling around them. It’s the women who struggle with the passage of time and betrayals by friends or family members, all against a pervasive backdrop of decay and death. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">If read too quickly, the stories in <em>After the Funeral</em> may seem to move in slow-motion. But read her pristine sentences more closely, and you’ll see <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10040-authors-whose-works-will-enrich-your-life" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">just how much is really going on</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3bestbooks23.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>The Zone of Interest </em>by Martin Amis</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Last May, I was well into an enthusiastic rereading of <em>The Zone of Interest</em> (2014) a novel by Martin Amis. The story, a sort of love triangle among Nazi officers and an officer’s wife set in Auschwitz, is admittedly not a work of fiction that suits everyone’s taste. But for me, the British author’s stylistic wizardry—his black humor and hyperkinetic prose, one dazzling thumbnail character sketch after another—was on full display.  The recently released film, based on Amis's novel, has also been hailed by critics as one of the best of the year. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Amis, aged 73, <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24003-remembering-martin-amis-master-style-and-substance" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">died on May 13</a>. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Critics lambasted much of his later work (<em>Yellow Dog, Lionel Asbo</em><em>)</em>. My own take—having read nearly everything he wrote since <em>London Fields </em><em>(1999)</em>—was just the opposite. For sheer verbal fireworks, and a mostly seamless blend of satire and rumination on the human condition, Amis always delivered.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4bestbooks23.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Red Sky in Morning </em>by Paul Lynch </strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Red Sky in Morning </em>(2013) is the first novel by Paul Lynch, author of this year’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, <em>Prophet Song</em>. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">I came upon <em>Red Sky in Morning </em>by accident, but it took only a few pages to get sucked in. The writing is rough-hewn and hardscrabble, as befits its subject matter—a 19th-century Irish tenant farmer commits a murder and is pursued by authorities across the Atlantic—but Lynch pulls it off.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The influence of Cormac McCarthy weighs heavily on <em>Red Sky in Morning </em>(“The trees let slip the mantle of darkness, stretched themselves, fingers of leaves shivering in the breeze, red then goldening rays of light catching”). Still, the novel stands on its own—fully imagined and lived-in, with sentences that sing, dance, and erupt into sudden violence. A masterful debut. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5bestbooks23.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Lee Polevoi is </em>Highbrow Magazine<em>’s chief book critic. His new novel, </em></strong><a href="https://www.leepolevoi.com/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash</strong></a><strong>, <em>was published in 2023.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2023" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of 2023</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/after-funeral" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">after the funeral</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/there-will-be-fire" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">there will be fire</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sun-walks-down" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the sun walks down</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:50:15 +0000 tara 12886 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24273-look-best-books-and-other-favorites#comments A Look at the Best Books of 2022 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/23063-look-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/26/2022 - 14:07</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1bestbooks2022.jpg?itok=lY5N79W6"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1bestbooks2022.jpg?itok=lY5N79W6" width="384" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>As in recent years, there’s a fair amount of unanimity among reviewers as to the best fiction of 2022. Nothing wrong with that, many of these books are really good. Here’s an opportunity to spotlight a few others published this year that didn’t get all the attention they merited (and to commemorate one lasting masterpiece).</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Homesickness: Stories</em> by Colin Barrett</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As in his debut story collection, <em>Young Skins</em>, this hugely talented writer once again immerses us in a remote part of the Emerald Isle, serving up characters who display <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/20023-beguiling-tales-county-mayo-colin-barrett-s-homesickness" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">his signature mix of humor and melancholy</a>. Life is hard for County Mayo residents, eased only occasionally by flashes of love and warm feelings.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The prose is energetic throughout. Coffee is “black as a vinyl record.” A rookie cop has a “guileless shine coming off his forehead.” In the story, “The Ways,” a character is distinguished by “the scanty lichen of an unthriving moustache clinging to his lips.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The only disappointing aspect of <em>Homesickness</em><em> </em>is that, for those of us who swooned over Colin Barrett’s first book, there’s less of that irrepressible joy of discovery the second time around. New readers will likely feel the same excitement generated by the stories in <em>Young Skins.</em><em> </em>At the very least, they’ll see how a promising young writer has more than fulfilled the high expectations set by his earlier work.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2harrisbook_0.jpg" style="height:506px; width:335px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Act of Oblivion</em> by Robert Harris</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">1661. Two English officers, Colonels Goffe and Whalley, flee England after King Charles II signs the Act of Oblivion—a call to execute 59 men who 11 years earlier signed a death warrant for his father, King Charles I. Hot on the trail of these so-called “regicides” is Richard Nayler, Clerk of the Privy Council, charged with tracking them down, but especially the signatories, Whalley and Goffe.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In <em>Act of Oblivion,</em><em> </em>“real time” overtakes what could have been a more conventional story of pursuit and apprehension. Years pass. People age. Some die in obscurity, rather than at the hands of the law. Harris makes readers complicit in this passage of time; we closely follow the desperate efforts by Whalley and Goffe to evade the authorities, while we’re also caught up in the Privy Clerk’s obsessive, years-long quest to arrest them.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Robert Harris is known for writing engaging, suspenseful novels based on historical events. <em>Act of Oblivion</em><em> </em>is <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21700-manhunt-new-world-robert-harris-s-act-oblivion" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">among his best so far</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/mantelbook_0.jpg" style="height:650px; width:650px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Learning to Talk: Stories</em> by Hilary Mantel</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The literary world lost a great voice in 2022, with the passing of Hilary Mantel. In her <em>Wolf Hall </em>trilogy, Mantel reinvented the code for historical fiction, transforming the hoary conventions of novels set during the reign of Henry VIII into narratives with a contemporary point of view, superbly suited to our latter-day sensibilities. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">So successful was this project that one reads <em>The Mirror &amp; the Light</em><em> </em>(the last novel in the series, coming in at a mere 700 pages) with the same page-turning fervor as <em>Wolf Hall</em><em> </em>and its successor, <em>Bring Down the Bodies</em>. Thomas Cromwell, the trilogy’s protagonist, is as fully rendered as any fictional character in modern times, and these epic works are wonderful to read from first page to last.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Mantel’s work of short fiction, <em>Learning to Talk</em> (published in the U.S. in 2022, originally in the UK in 2013) has a much narrower focus—that is, stories of a troubled Catholic childhood in the North of England in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The seven stories are all told in a first-person (mostly female) voice of an adult looking back on pivotal moments in childhood, set against an industrial backdrop and within the world of a highly unorthodox nuclear family. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A far cry from the world of Tudor royalty, the stories in <em>Learning to Talk </em>offer further proof that Hilary Mantel was among the <a href="file:///C:/Users/My/Downloads/A%20far%20cry%20from%20the%20world%20of%20Wolf%20Hall,%20this%20story%20collection%20offers%20further%20proof%20that%20Hilary%20Mantel%20is%20among%20the%20most%20gifted%20and%20accomplished%20writers%20of%20our%20time" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">most gifted and accomplished writers of our time</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/banvillebook.jpg" style="height:600px; width:406px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>The Singularities</em> by John Banville</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>The Singularities</em> by John Banville might be best suited, as some claim, for those of us so-called “John Banville completists,” but it’s no less entertaining for that. (A better place to start with this brilliant and prolific author is <em>The Book of Evidence</em> or <em>The Untouchable</em>). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In any case, Banville is up to all kinds of literary tricks in this novel set in a decrepit house in a vaguely Irish landscape. He resuscitates a slew of characters from past novels, throwing them all together under the coy tutelage of “a godlet” who shares narrator duties with a recently released ex-murderer; the son and daughter-in-law of a great philosopher; the great philosopher’s aged mother; and the great man’s biographer. Oh, and <em>The Singularities</em> is set in some undefined future, when America has been invaded and conquered by the Dutch!. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Plot is never the reason for reading Banville; rather it’s his glorious prose—arched, sensual, self-mocking—that remains as gaudy and mischievous as ever. A magician with words.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/dallowaybook.jpg" style="height:600px; width:400px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Mrs. Dalloway</em> by Virginia Woolf (1925)</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s nearly 100 years since the original publication of <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em>, Virginia Woolf’s crowning achievement. From its immortal early line, “What a lark! What a plunge!”, she describes an eventful day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, as she prepares for an evening party in her upper-class London home. The storyline moves back and forth in time, dramatizing fateful moments in the lives of Mrs. Dalloway, her friend (and would-be lover) Peter Walsh, and a shell-shocked veteran of the Great Way, Septimius Smith. Woolf masterfully captures the rich, and often tormented inner lives of these characters, while also creating an evocative portrait of postwar England. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">What comes across most vividly is the protagonist’s almost excruciatingly delicate sensibility. <em>Mrs. Dalloway </em>reads as fresh and insightful as if it had been written in 2022. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic</em>, <em>is the author of </em></strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Gabriel-Ash-Lee-Polevoi/dp/1955062587/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1670598769&amp;sr=1-1" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash</strong></a><strong><em>, a novel forthcoming in 2023 from Running Wild Press.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>--</em></strong><em>Ashutosh Sonwani (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/string-lights-on-a-book-1791742/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2022" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of 2022</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hilary-mantel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hilary mantel</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/john-banville" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">john banville</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/robert-harris" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">robert harris</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/colin-barrett" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">colin barrett</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-year" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of the year</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 26 Dec 2022 19:07:06 +0000 tara 11556 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/23063-look-best-books#comments The Best Books of 2021 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19063-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 12/29/2021 - 16:00</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/5books_jh_fragonard-wikipedia.jpg?itok=jFXdLiCX"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/5books_jh_fragonard-wikipedia.jpg?itok=jFXdLiCX" width="452" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Once again, another rich year of reading. For this list of best books of 2021 (plus a novel from the recent past), the focus is on vibrancy of storytelling, brilliant quirks of language, and the quality of the reader's overall immersive experience. Some of these titles appear on other year-end lists, but a couple have been overlooked, and deserve more attention. All are well worth reading and many will be revisited in years to come.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>That Old Country Music</em> by Kevin Barry</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s no surprise that Irish writer Kevin Barry makes the list, with his latest story collection, <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/12392-love-death-and-west-ireland-old-country-music" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>That Old Country Music</em></a><em>. </em>Barry’s voice is raunchy, lyrical, entirely submerged in the Irish storytelling tradition, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Few writers combine so many different tonal registers, while also entrancing us with beautiful prose.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Not all stories in <em>That Old Country Music </em>resonate with the same impact as small gems like “Ox Mountain Death Song,” or “The Roma Kid,” a stunning account of an immigrant girl’s life. But throughout the collection, you won’t find a badly written page, even a substandard paragraph. That’s how good this writer is.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/souvenirmuseum.jpg" style="height:603px; width:400px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>The Souvenir Museum</em> by Elizabeth McCracken</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Sometimes a writer is so abundantly gifted in all the right elements of fiction that finding fault with their work seems ill-tempered at best. Her thumbnail sketches tell us what a character is like in just a sentence or two. The narrative tone of each story strikes just the right precarious balance between comedy and tragedy. And the author’s expert sense of pacing keeps a reader engaged until the story’s end.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Elizabeth McCracken is one of these writers, and it’s a rare pleasure to immerse yourself in her newest story collection, <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/12080-souvenir-museum-delves-tragicomic-lives-its-characters" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>The Souvenir Museum</em></a>. As with <em>Thunderstruck,</em><em> </em>her previous (and equally brilliant) book of short stories, it’s immediately clear she knows what she’s doing—providing readers with deeply felt and insightful short fiction.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Light Perpetual</em> by Francis Spufford</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">What might have happened to five children if they hadn’t lost their lives when a V-2 rocket crashed into a London building at the height of the Second World War? That’s the unconventional (and completely persuasive) premise of <em>Light Perpetual </em>by Francis Spufford. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As with <em>Golden Hill, </em>his previous novel, Spufford plunges readers inside specific historical periods (actually, in <em>Light Perpetual</em>, the timeframe jumps at 15-year intervals through each character’s life), and he excels at drilling down into individual psychologies and personalities. The consummate way in which he portrays each of these five imaginary lives (“imaginary” in the sense that their lives go on undamaged by that V-2 rocket, <em>and </em>because “imaginary” is what fiction does) proves once again that Spufford is a writer of extraordinary range and talent.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/harlemshuffle.jpg" style="height:607px; width:399px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Harlem Shuffle </em>by Colson Whitehead</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Ray Carney owns a furniture store in Harlem, but he also walks a fine line between civic responsibility and criminal enterprises. In <em>Harlem Shuffle</em>, Colson Whitehead makes the creation of uptown Manhattan in the late 1950s and early 1960s—as well as a series of heists in which Carney becomes enmeshed—look easy to do, when of course it’s not. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Whitehead’s prose is smart, jumpy, and pleasingly digressive. The storytelling seems effortless, and yet I can’t recall another work of fiction in 2021 that offered such high entertainment value.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Stephen Florida</em> by Gabe Habash</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Stephen Florida, a college senior in North Dakota, is obsessed with winning the NCAA Division IV Championship wrestling title. This not-entirely-fascinating premise aside, <em>Stephen Florida </em>(2017) is a remarkable achievement. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As the school year proceeds, we witness the young wrestler’s steady descent into madness—heart wrenching to read and yet, thanks to the author’s prowess, often very funny. This first-person novel puts many other “unreliable narrators” to shame, and the world Stephen Florida inhabits, so very strange at first, feels by the end of the novel all too real.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, is the author of a novel, </em>The Moon in Deep Winter. <em>A new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash, <em>will be published in 2022.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Source:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Jean-Honore Fragonard painting (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fragonard,_The_Reader.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Wikipedia</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/colson-whitehead" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">colson whitehead</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/harlem-shuffle" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">harlem shuffle</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/elizabeth-mccracken" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">elizabeth mccracken</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/souvenir-museum" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the souvenir museum</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kevin-barry" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kevin barry</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2021" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of 2021</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 29 Dec 2021 21:00:14 +0000 tara 10822 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19063-best-books#comments The Best Books of 2019 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10333-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 12/27/2019 - 08:14</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1bestbooks2019.jpg?itok=XYHHTGdy"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1bestbooks2019.jpg?itok=XYHHTGdy" width="316" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><em>Readers who follow end-of-the-year book lists encounter many of the same titles, no doubt all offering a rich reading experience. What follows includes some books a bit more off the beaten track—novels, a collection of short stories, and a work of criticism that deserve broader readership as well. </em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>The Volunteer</em></strong><strong> by Salvatore Scibona</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>For me, <em>The Volunteer </em>is the most accomplished work of fiction published in 2019. The story of Vollie Frade (the “Volunteer”) spans numerous generations, zigzagging from the American Midwest to the war in Vietnam, from the borough of Queens, New York, to New Mexico and Latvia. The intriguing opening chapters don’t prepare the reader for Vollie’s brutal ordeal as a POW in Vietnam, which he barely survives. That’s when the novel becomes something genuinely special—each sentence, each paragraph perfectly crafted, a work for the ages:</p> <p> </p> <p>“You’d see a guy was scared. They were all of them scared out of their minds even while stoned, but you’d see, what was it, the eyes too open, too reactive to movement and sun glints of passing scooter windshields; eyes too certain they could see it coming, the moment, the fell turn; a crouchy way of moving around even when the guy had no gear to hump; and it all amounted to a greed to go on living, laced with the knowledge it was not meant to be. Like, I know I’m not getting out of here. And then, a few weeks later, you’d hear the guy was dead.”</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s baffling that <em>The Volunteer </em>has been so unjustly overlooked in many “best of 2019” lists.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Now We Shall Be Entirely Free</em></strong><strong> by Andrew Miller</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>A fugitive from the Napoleonic Wars, Captain John Lacroix journeys to Scotland for mysterious reasons in a suspenseful, beautifully written novel by Andrew Miller. Pursued by coldblooded agents of the British Army, Lacroix grapples with horrific memories of war and finds solace in the arms of a young noblewoman on the verge of losing her eyesight. <em>Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, </em>while firmly established in 18<sup>th</sup>-century England, feels contemporary in tone and spirit.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2bestbooks2019.jpg" style="height:278px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Grand Union</em></strong><strong> by Zadie Smith</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Zadie Smith’s novel, <em>NW, </em>was one of my <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1889-best-books-and-honorable-mentions">top choices in 2012</a>. In <em>Grand Union, </em>her first collection of short stories, Smith takes on a wide range of voices and situations, rendered in consistently distinctive, high-octane sentences. In “Sentimental Education,” for example, a mother of three looks back on her licentious youth in language that’s both wise and lustful, also dripping with insights into the human condition:</p> <p> </p> <p>“… she read a brutal news story and thought, yes, from my school emerged one England football player and two and a half pop stars; from Daryl’s, this grinning loon who just decapitated someone in Iraq. On the other hand, the very first boy Monica ever kissed went on to stab a man to death in a chip shop around the same time she was fixing a mortarboard to her head.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Writing that’s whip-smart, unpredictable, and often very funny.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Night Boat to Tangier</em></strong><strong> by Kevin Barry</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Another “repeat offender” (on my best books lists for 2013 and <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5510-best-books">2015</a>), Kevin Barry demonstrates once again his Irish wizardry with prose. This time, a pair of aging gangsters sit and converse in a terminal in Morocco while waiting for an errant daughter to (possibly) arrive from Tangier. Their Godot-like dialogue and larger story span a long, troubled friendship, as well as colorful excursions into their lives of crime.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>Night Boat to Tangier</em> is eminently quotable throughout. Just as an example, here’s a description of one of the pair, Maurice Hearns:</p> <p> </p> <p>“His left eye is smeared and dead, the other oddly bewitched, as though with an excess of life, for balance. He wears a shabby suit, an open-necked black shirt, white runners and a derby hat perched high on the back of his head. Dudeish, at one time, certainly, but past it now.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3bestbooks2019.jpg" style="height:600px; width:397px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>September 1, 1939</em></strong><strong> by Ian Sansom</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>“Best of” lists should strive to include at least one quirky, unclassifiable work of literature. This year’s hands-down winner is <em>September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem. </em></p> <p> </p> <p>For a quarter-century, Ian Sansom has circled W.H. Auden’s iconic poem, “September 1, 1939,” set on the eve of the Second World War. Instead of traditional analysis, Sansom delivers a series of impressions, asides, and off-tangent meditations on the poem—reminiscent of <em>Out of Sheer Rage, </em>Geoff Dyer’s classic work on writing and procrastination<em>. </em>The result is a beguiling interpretation of the poem that saw a revival of interest on 9/11 and served to remind us all: “I and the public know / what all schoolchildren learn / Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, recently completed a new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Google Images (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Main photo: Painting, “The Reading,” by Vittorio Reggianini</em></p> <p>                                                                                                            </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/salvatore-scibona" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">salvatore scibona</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/andrew-miller" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">andrew miller</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/zadie-smith" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">zadie smith</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/grand-union" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">grand union</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/volunteer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the volunteer</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2019" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of 2019</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nonfiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nonfiction</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 27 Dec 2019 13:14:04 +0000 tara 9252 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10333-best-books#comments 7 Authors Whose Works Will Enrich Your Life https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10040-authors-whose-works-will-enrich-your-life <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 07/01/2019 - 13:25</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1faveauthors.jpg?itok=1JlCJYdn"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1faveauthors.jpg?itok=1JlCJYdn" width="281" height="424" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong><em>Editor’s Note: We asked Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, to share a list of his favorite authors and explain why they made his list.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Considering the abundance of good books being published these days, it’s a challenge selecting and describing a mere handful of favorite authors. The following list includes writers whose novels and short stories are consistently outstanding, and who inspire me to work harder—and who are still among the living. (A selection of favorite writers from past eras would make up another list entirely.) Also included is a recommendation on where to start, if you’re new to a particular author.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Tessa Hadley</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Tessa Hadley has published many books, including a remarkable recent novel, <em>The Past.</em> For me, her talents shine brightest in the arena of short fiction, as in her most recent collection, <em>Bad Dreams and Other Stories. </em>Without resorting to prose that calls attention to itself, she tells stories in precise detail and with considerable narrative economy—often to shattering effect.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/07/the-stain">“The Stain”</a></strong><strong> (short story)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Don DeLillo</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>I first encountered the master’s work in his early novels, <em>Players </em>and <em>Running Dog</em>, many years ago. Since then, Don DeLillo has assumed Olympian status for the razor-sharp wit of his sentences and the prescient nature of his vision. He understands how we struggle to maintain sanity in a fractured world—and the terrors that arise when we fail.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <em>Libra</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2faveauthors.jpg" style="height:620px; width:400px" /></p> <p><strong>John le Carré</strong> </p> <p> </p> <p>The writer who elevated espionage fiction to literature continues, against all odds, to produce stellar work. <em>A Legacy of Spies</em>, John le Carré’s most recent novel (written in his 80s), is as fast-paced and rich with subtext as the novels of decades ago that first set him apart from the pack. I’ve read <em>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy </em>at least a half-dozen times and always come away impressed with the labyrinthine world-building he achieved in this and the other novels in his famous <em>Karla Trilogy</em>.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <em>A Delicate Truth</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Hilary Mantel</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>With <em>Wolf Hall </em>and <em>Bring Up the Bodies</em>, both winners of the Man Booker Prize, Hilary Mantel essentially recreated the historical novel—imbuing personalities and events from long ago (Thomas Cromwell and the Court of King Henry VIII) with astonishing dexterity, grace and style. The PBS television series based on these novels, with a superb performance by Mark Rylance as Cromwell, is just as good.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <em>Wolf Hall </em></strong></p> <p>                                                              </p> <p><strong>Kevin Barry</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Even at a comparatively young age, Kevin Barry is already an “elder statesman” among the fresh crop of new generation Irish writers. His novels and short stories are surprising, electric, ribald, quirky and reliably entertaining at the highest level. A few years back, he published a novel called <em>Beatlebone</em>—a fictionalized account of John Lennon’s journey to an island he bought off the coast of England. It’s a <em>tour de force</em> rendering of an iconic figure, with some metafictional twists thrown into the mix.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/fjord-of-killary">“Fjord of Killary”</a></strong><strong> (short story)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3faveauthors_fuzheado_wikimedia.jpg" style="height:600px; width:400px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Annie Proulx</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>In the short story collections, <em>Close Range: Wyoming Stories </em>and <em>Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2, </em>Annie Proulx conveys a slantwise joy at what’s become of the Old West, and her cast of eccentrics often find themselves hilariously at odds with modern life. Her prose is a unique blend of slang, lyricism and bitingly wry characterization.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/11/the-half-skinned-steer/306168/">“The Half-Skinned Steer”</a></strong><strong> (short story)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>John Banville</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>While he’s notorious for eschewing plot and character development, I can’t think of anyone who writes more sensuous and deeply beautiful prose. He also writes thrillers (of a sort) under an assumed name, but it’s the fiction of John Banville that’s certain to endure, novels like <em>The Sea</em> and <em>The Book Of Evidence</em><a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>. Curiously, what might be his best work, <em>The Untouchable</em>, has plot, characterization, suspense, and all the other “typical” elements of good fiction. It’s as close to perfect as I think a novel can be.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Recommendation: <em>The Untouchable</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Others who make the list include Peter Carey, Joy Williams, David Means, Thomas McGuane, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Alan Hollinghurst, Michael Ondaatje, Richard Ford, and Otessa Moshfegh.</p> <p> </p> <p>On your mark, get set – <em>read</em>!</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em>Highbrow Magazine's<em> chief book critic, is the author of </em></strong><strong>The Moon in Deep Winter<em>, and recently completed a new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Images: Google Images/<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_le_Carr%C3%A9_giving_his_thrilling_keynote_speech_(35113962032).jpg">Wikimedia.org (Creative Commons)</a>; <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2018-us-nationalbookfestival-annie-proulx.jpg">Wikimedia.org</a> (Fuzheado, Creative Commons).</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/john-le-carre" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">john le carre</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/don-dellilo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">don dellilo</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hilary-mantel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hilary mantel</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/annie-proulx" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">annie proulx</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tessa-hadley" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tessa hadley</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/john-banville" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">john banville</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/favorite-authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">favorite authors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Images: Google Images/Wikimedia.org (Creative Commons); Wikimedia.org (Creative Commons).</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 01 Jul 2019 17:25:09 +0000 tara 8823 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10040-authors-whose-works-will-enrich-your-life#comments The Best Books of 2018 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9632-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/24/2018 - 13:43</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1books2018.jpg?itok=OQ48KPoi"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1books2018.jpg?itok=OQ48KPoi" width="315" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong><em>Many notable books have appeared on recent “Best of 2018” lists, and some of these are included in my shortlist below. Other unjustly overlooked works of fiction and nonfiction appear here as well.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Notes from the Fog: Stories by Ben Marcus (Knopf)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Bad things happen, or are always about to happen, in <em>Notes from the Fog, </em>a luminous collection of short fiction by Ben Marcus. Whether it's a nice-guy dad driven to near-insanity by his weirdly precocious son, or a man who delights in staying behind in the aftermath of a devastating flood, Marcus unveils his characters’ inner lives with wit and dexterity, saying what often is left unsaid. Sentences spill out without a bump, both delicately constructed and piercing to the bone. And he’s a master of throwaway lines that tell entire stories in and of themselves:</p> <p> </p> <p>“Because without a religion one must have a code. Without a code it’s like piloting a body with no bones through life, which some people do, god help them. Dragging a heap of skin from room to room, hoping people see you as a human being when you are only a spill. You’ve leaked from something larger that is gone now, not even a shadow, and you are all that remains. In the end it is too exhausting to approximate a real person.”</p> <p> </p> <p>I dare readers to start the opening story, “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/cold-little-bird">Cold Little Bird</a>,” and not feel compelled to explore more of this author’s work. These are bleak, dystopic stories, to be sure, but make no mistake—they’re also very funny.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Warlight By Michael Ondaatje (Knopf)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>At the outset of <em>Warlight</em>, the young narrator, Nathaniel, and his sister Rachel, are abandoned by their mysterious parents and “left in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” What follows is a novel that encompasses coming of age, falling in love, and acts of espionage and petty crime against the backdrop of London after the end of World War II.</p> <p> </p> <p>From this unlikely but compelling premise, Ondaatje spins a yarn that includes art theft, night-time sojourns on the Thames, adventures in greyhound smuggling and more, all rendered in lyrical and eerily precise prose: “I knew nothing about boats, but I immediately loved the landless smells, the oil on the water, brine, fumes sputtering out of the stern, and I came to love the thousand and one sounds of the river around us, that let us be silent as if in a suddenly thoughtful universe within this rushing river.”</p> <p> </p> <p>If for some readers <em>Warlight </em>loses its way in the later pages, nonetheless the first third of the novel is as seductively written as anything the author of <em>The English Patient</em> has created before—an extraordinarily high standard to beat.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2books2018.jpg" style="height:285px; width:507px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Simon &amp; Schuster)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Susan Orlean’s paean to public libraries uses as its starting point the catastrophic Los Angeles Central Library fire in April 1986. Her description of the inferno is breathtaking, but only the start of a far-ranging blend of biography, true crime and absorbing first-person journalism. Orlean’s magpie approach to her subject isn’t surprising, once you buy into the notion that a book about libraries is a book about, well, everything.</p> <p> </p> <p>Early on, she recalls coming back to her hometown library decades after leaving the city: “Nothing had changed—there was the same soft <em>tsk-tsk-tsk </em>of pencil on paper, and the muffled murmuring from patrons at the tables in the center of the room, and the creak and groan of book carts, and the occasional papery clunk of a book dropped on a desk.” No one can write a sentence like this without an abiding, lifelong love of books and literature. This is a deeply affectionate look at “the bigger puzzle the library is always seeking to assemble—the looping, unending story of who we are.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Country Dark by Chris Offutt (Grove)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Set in rural Kentucky and spanning three decades, <em>Country Dark </em>is a lean, moody thriller about a Korean war veteran and the family he fights to protect. Tucker isn’t a particularly likeable protagonist—in fact, he commits the worst of all sins in a misguided attempt to save his loved ones—but over the course of the novel, Chris Offutt makes us care deeply about him and others in the hardscrabble country they inhabit in the 1950s and 1960s. His laconic prose style perfectly matches Tucker’s outlook on life and the memories he carries with him every day:</p> <p> </p> <p>“He’d grown up with guns as common as shovels, but had felt a genuine affection for the M1 carbine. As the shortest and youngest member of his platoon, he rarely spoke. His first words were in response to a corporal asking how he liked his rifle. Tucker had said, ‘Shoots good,’ and a silence fell over the other men as sudden as a net. They looked at one another, then began laughing in an uproarious manner. Four died in combat and would never laugh at him again.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3books2018.jpg" style="height:507px; width:345px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown (FSG)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Too bad more biographies aren’t like this one, a kaleidoscopic and irreverent look at the life of a now-deceased member of the 20<sup>th</sup> century British family, a princess determined to go her own way. Craig Brown dispenses with traditional linear narrative (birth, youth, middle age, old age, and death), preferring to draw us in with a series of impressions, anecdotes and speculations about Her Royal Highness (99 in all) that grow out of documented fact and salacious rumors.</p> <p> </p> <p>Despite HRH’s life of bad behavior, Brown’s affection for her shines through. To be a British royal is its own peculiar curse, nowhere described as tenderly and humorously as in this charming, idiosyncratic biography.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:<a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, recently completed a new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/susan-orlean" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">susan orlean</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/library-book" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the library book</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chris-offut" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chris offut</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/country-dark" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">country dark</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/notes-fog" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">notes from the fog</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ben-marcus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ben marcus</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/princess-margaret-book" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">princess margaret book</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 24 Dec 2018 18:43:53 +0000 tara 8448 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9632-best-books#comments Best Books of 2014 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4531-best-books <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/29/2014 - 13:28</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/leebook.jpg?itok=f8ijgcJH"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/leebook.jpg?itok=f8ijgcJH" width="318" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><em>By now, most “Best Books of 2014” lists are available to readers. Here’s a list of some additional works of fiction and nonfiction published this year that deserve a second look.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>On Such a Full Sea </em></strong><strong>by Chang-Rae Lee</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>One of the chief pleasures of <em>On Such a Full Sea</em> is the anxious, reflective, self-questioning and cautiously prideful “chorus of We” that tells the story of Fan, a 16-year-old fish-tank diver in a highly stratified, post-apocalyptic America. The collective voice emanates from B-Mor, “once known as Baltimore,” whose inhabitants are charged with raising fish and vegetables to feed the elite Charter villages, located across a vast, lawless territory called the “open counties.”</p> <p> </p> <p>This novel amply demonstrates Chang-Rae Lee’s gift for creating suspenseful narratives and moments where acts of kindness transform into shocking savagery. Though the story’s forward momentum drops off markedly in the final third of the novel, <em>On Such a Full Sea </em>is an exceptional achievement, distinguished by strikingly elegant prose.  This is a novelist whose work <a href="http://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4023-navigating-mostly-difficult-world-chang-rae-lee">demands our attention</a>.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1joyce.jpg" style="height:391px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses</em></strong><strong> by Kevin Birmingham</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>As Kevin Birmingham illustrates in his engagingly written “biography of a book,” James Joyce’s <em>Ulysses </em>changed both the way novels are written and the way novels are read. The story of how this challenging book overcame the restrictions of puritanical censorship is well worth telling, and Birmingham does so with the <a href="http://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4272-story-james-joyce-s-ulysses-contraband-masterpiece">right degree of enthusiasm, respect and attention</a> to the key players.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>The Most Dangerous Book</em> encompasses accounts of Joyce’s many devoted supporters, including Ezra Pound, the lawyer John Quinn, the editors of <em>The Little Review </em>and, perhaps most importantly, Sylvia Beach, owner of the Paris-based bookstore Shakespeare &amp; Company, who published <em>Ulysses </em>in book form when no one else would. They emerge as heroes in the struggle to make this ground-breaking work available to readers everywhere. But it’s Joyce himself who emerges as a heroic figure, albeit a deeply flawed one.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/loiteringbook.jpg" style="height:457px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Loitering: Essays </em></strong><strong>by Charles D’Ambrosio</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>In the introduction to his new collection of essays, Charles D’Ambrosio does a better job than most in laying out what readers can expect. “… As much as I wrote and rewrote many of these pieces, often, in a contrary mood, the goal of those revisions was to get the thing to read like a rough draft,” he says of his writing process.</p> <p> </p> <p>Whether  writing about Mary Kay Letourneau’s statutory rape trial, the plight of parentless children in a Russian orphanage or the heart-aching miseries of his own family life, D’Ambrosio succeeds to a remarkable degree in making these essays feel both like rough drafts and polished works of art. The carefully engineered rhythm and texture of his sentences quickly draw the reader in, especially in “This is Living,” a moving portrait of his father and criminal grandfather, and in the stunning title essay, “Loitering.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In “Whaling Out West,” he describes a night spent camping out by the Pacific Ocean and the warring impulses that grow out of a tortured family history of mental illness and suicide:</p> <p> </p> <p>“A wave washing around my ankles or perhaps a crease of white foam curling over in the sand will have to indicate a cautionary line where it’s wise to stop or maybe not, maybe not, maybe walk on into the ocean, trust that the handful of people I haven’t failed will remember me fondly, round things off right now and call it a life, make a biography out of this otherwise open aimless business.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In that repeated phrase (“maybe not, maybe not”), Charles D’Ambrosio captures his personal struggle and the collectively  ingrained ambivalence of modern life. <em>Loitering </em>is a terrific book.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/andrewsbrain.jpg" style="height:557px; width:369px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Andrew’s Brain </em></strong><strong>by E.L. Doctorow</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>At 81, E.L. Doctorow might be expected to produce a somber, slow-moving meditative work looking back on a rich life of achievements. Instead, with <em>Andrew’s Brain</em>, he’s written a novel that’s spry, mischievous, fast-moving, elliptical and almost to the last page, surprising and delightful.</p> <p> </p> <p>The book is framed as a prolonged conversation between Andrew, a cognitive neuroscientist and an unnamed person who may or may not be his psychotherapist. The story flits back and forth over time, encompassing memory, personal history, philosophical observations and cunningly crafted scenes ranging from summer homes to the West Wing of the White House. <em>Andrew’s Brain </em>defies categorization and is much the better for it.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/eyrie.jpg" style="height:590px; width:388px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Eyrie </em></strong><strong>by Tim Winton</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The latest novel by acclaimed Australian writer Tim Winton relates the troubled story of Tom Keely, a disgraced environmental activist living in a run-down apartment tower in Freemantle and continuing to make a spectacular mess of his life. A chance at redemption comes in the form of an old friend Gemma and her haunted grandson Kai, but not before Keeley endures a near-apocalyptic hangover.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“In the bathroom, before a scalding block of sunlight, he tilted at the mirror to see how far the eyes had retreated from the battlefield of his face. Above the wildman beard he was all gullies and flaky shale. Badlands. His wine-blackened teeth the ruins of a scorched-earth retreat.”</p> <p> </p> <p>A challenging novel, <em>Eyrie </em>nonetheless contains more propulsive narrative motion and unerringly acute dialogue than most other novels of 2014.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s<em> chief book critic, is completing a new novel. </em></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chang-rae-lee" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chang rae lee</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/such-full-sea" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">on such a full sea</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/james-joyce" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">james joyce</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kevin-birmingham" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kevin birmingham</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ulysses" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ulysses</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/andrews-brain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">andrew&#039;s brain</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/eyriue" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">eyriue</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/e-l-doctorow" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">e l doctorow</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-2014-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books of 2014</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-books-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best books</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:28:48 +0000 tara 5554 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4531-best-books#comments